Quotes About Autonomy

I did not see that there was much more I could do for Jeff. He was now totally in the hands of other people. They would decide what he wore, what he ate, where he slept, what medication, if, any, he received. My fatherly duties had been reduced to the provision of a few small services, none of them basic. As a father, my role had almost disappeared.

If you take that away from me, and every other opportunity to not quite toe the line," Willing said, "then however many amusing things I'm at liberty to do, I don't feel free. If I don't feel free, I'm not free." I don't feel free, Willing did not add, and I have not felt free since you and yours jammed this fleck of metal into my neck.

Some people think that asking a question gives them a right to know the answer somehow. Well, it's not true. You've no right to anything. I'll tell you what I want to. I don't care what you ask.

I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story.

In order for people to live their own lives and fulfill their destiny, they must differentiate themselves from destructive environmental influences.

Without differentiating from parents or caretakers we may never succeed in living our own lives.

Most people don't need the help of strangers to screw up their lives; most of them are quite capable of doing it themselves!

Don't sublimate your own freedom and desires in order to satisfy the invisible judgments of others against hypothetical wrongdoings.

You have the right to be you. -- Lisa Haisha

I can't accept a man who insists on dominating and pampering me.

the individual has the key to change themselves. It's buried deep inside each and every one of us and although someone else can help us to find the key, we're the only ones who can use it. And there

I will never guilt trip my children when they are adults, she'd vowed. I will never expect more than they are

My life had actually begun. Or at least that's what I told myself. That's what I believed. It's only now that I can see how wrong I was. That I was just handing myself from the hands of one controlling person to another.

being a grown-up is not about getting married, about smart flats and reading groups; it's about taking responsibility for your own actions and the consequences of those actions.

I'm coming to believe that there are two kinds of people... those who choose to be masters of their own fate and those who wait in chairs while other dance. I would rather be one of the former than the latter.

Without a doubt... the worst part of being a single woman was having to take care of your own car.

Some folks are happier not being saved.

I never take advice, good or bad. That would only encourage more of it.

Be careful dear that you don't end up as the queen of a lonely kingdom

Unless you have a sense of values that's shared by people and turns them loose to do certain things on their own within those sets of values, the organization, whether a nation or corporation or citizen group, just doesn't work very well.

If a man's free will to adopt ideas and values is inalienable, his freedom of action - his freedom to put these ideas into effect in the world - is not in such a fortunate condition.

John and I were lucky because our mother was a strong woman with high expectations and a strong sense of values. She encouraged us to pursue things we were interested in and not think about what other people wanted us to do.

All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.

Robots should stand up for themselves and not try to be humans. They should either utterly destroy us or protect us from aliens. And vampires. And pirates.